Chapter 8
After dinner, Ramón confiscated the ladder outside Vero’s bedroom window and locked it in his work van.
Javi collected our overnight bags from my minivan, and they both gave the yard a final check before coming inside and locking the house.
When we’d all finally said our good nights, Javi and Ramón retreated downstairs, where Javi had made up the pullout sofa in the rec room beside the bedroom he’d once shared with Ramón.
Norma and Gloria dallied in the kitchen, waiting for Vero and me to head upstairs before they turned off the lights and followed us to bed.
Apparently, the fact that Vero and Javi were sleeping two floors apart wasn’t enough to reassure her mother that there wouldn’t be any hanky-panky between them during the night.
Their precautions hardly seemed necessary.
Vero had shown him her cheek when he’d tried to kiss her good night, and she’d shut her bedroom door with more force than necessary.
She knelt to pull the trundle from her bed.
Norma had piled a stack of sheets and pillows into my arms, and I dropped them on the mattress, almost too exhausted to bother making it up.
Vero and I each took a corner of the fitted sheet.
When I looked over at her, she was smiling, and I was surprised to realize that so was I.
I’d missed this, the mundane things we always did together: making beds, cooking, folding the laundry, eating cookies and ice cream on the couch after the kids went to bed.
And it made me all the more determined for the task that lay ahead of us tomorrow.
She went to the window to draw the curtains and paused.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her as she turned and frowned.
“The window’s closed, but I swear I left it open.
I know I did,” she said, raking her hair back from her eyes.
“I was climbing the ladder when I heard my mom yelling in the hall. I had just enough time to climb through the window and run to the door before she opened it. I never went back to close it when we heard Ramón and Javi fighting outside. I left it wide open.”
“Maybe your mother closed it after dinner.”
“You and I were the only ones who came upstairs. I’m certain of it, Finn.
Someone was in here.” Her eyes darted over every surface of her bedroom.
“The rock came through the living room window. Whoever threw it was standing in the backyard. My window was wide open, and the ladder was right there. Wouldn’t you have climbed it if you thought there was a few hundred grand hidden up here? ”
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
I looked around the room, too, searching for signs that anything had been tampered with.
“Let’s check and see if anything’s missing.
” Vero dove for the desk at the same time I went for her dresser.
I blew out a sigh of relief when I found that the envelope containing all her case notes was sitting out, right where I had left it.
It didn’t appear to have been opened. But maybe Vero’s stalker had been in too much of a hurry to realize what it was.
And if they were looking for a backpack full of money, they might have overlooked the envelope entirely.
“If they did search your room, they were awfully tidy about it,” I said, struggling to find anything out of place. Vero opened her closet. Her clothes were all neatly hung, her shoes stacked in racks along the floor. She reached down for a pair of bright white sneakers and held them out to show me.
One of them was missing a shoelace.
A chill raced through me.
Vero looked like she might be sick. “Whoever threw that rock was in my room while we were eating dinner. How were they in my bedroom and we didn’t even hear them?”
“Everyone was arguing,” I reminded her. “You and Javi and Norma were bickering about the wedding, and Gloria had to shout over you just to get you all to stop. Someone could have climbed in your window and started breakdancing at the top of the stairs and we wouldn’t have been any wiser.
It was so loud down there, who knows what they were up here doing.
” If they were spying on us, they might have heard everything: Javi’s theory that Theo could have taken the money, Vero’s insistence that he hadn’t, and the group’s agreement that the only hope we had for clearing her name was to find him.
I took the shoe from Vero and put it back in the closet.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of all of this,” I assured her.
“We just need to find Theo and make him sign a statement. If we can force him to tell the truth and confirm your alibi for that night, the prosecutor will have to drop your charges. We’ll make sure everyone knows you’re innocent, then whoever is harassing you will back off.
” I’d post about Vero’s release from custody on my own social media if I had to.
For that matter, I’d write about it in Mrs. Haggerty’s salacious tell-all book and sell the damn TV rights if that meant whoever was tormenting Vero would stop.
“Do you have any idea who might be sending these notes to you?” I asked.
Vero’s laugh was hopeless. She sat down on her bed and pulled a pillow to her lap.
“It could be anyone, Finn. At first I thought maybe it could be Mia or Ava. Mia was the president of our chapter. Ava was VP. We planned the poker nights together. We were supposed to split the money after we graduated, along with a few frat guys who helped us out with the games. Of all of them, Mia and Ava would have the biggest reason to be pissed at me since most of the money was supposed to be theirs. The three of us were in a lot of trouble with the university by the time I ran away. They probably thought I got away with everything. But the handwriting on those notes isn’t Ava’s or Mia’s.
I would know. I lived with both of them in the Kappa Gamma house for almost three years. ”
“Okay. Who else?”
“The people who played in our poker games lost a lot of money. Any one of them, or even their parents, could be angry enough to want to break into my room and steal their money back.”
“Then for now let’s focus on finding Theo and securing your alibi,” I suggested. “What’s the plan for tomorrow?”
“There’s only one person in this town who might be able and willing to help me find him. We should start with her.”
“Who?”
“Zoey Kline. We were in KG together. She was my Little.”
“Your little what?”
“You know, like a Little Sister. I was her Big … her mentor. We got matched up when she pledged. She was a freshman and I was a senior. She worshipped the ground I walked on and used to follow me around like a damn puppy everywhere. She’s sweet though.
And she was a lot closer to me than she was to anyone else in our chapter.
First thing in the morning, you and I should go to campus to talk to her. ”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to leave the house.”
“I can leave the house,” Vero corrected me.
“I’m not a violent offender, so I get essential leave privileges.
My ankle monitor lets me out of here between nine and noon on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to run errands, on Wednesday nights for confession, and on Saturday nights for mass.
” I raised an eyebrow, and she smirked. “It’s the only night they do the service in Spanish.
My monitoring officer couldn’t exactly say no. ”
“Since when did you start going to mass?”
“Around the same time you started giving up alcohol for Lent. Anything you want to tell me?” she asked in a mocking tone.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. Incoming call from Nick flashed on the screen.
“Nothing either of us has time to worry about now. We have enough on our plate.” I tossed Vero a pair of shapeless flannel pajamas from her dresser, as well as a pair of the ugly granny panties she usually reserved for laundry day.
Then I locked the window, drawing the curtains tight.
“No more sneaking out while I’m gone,” I warned her.
I carried my vibrating phone to the bathroom down the hall, connecting Nick’s call before it could roll to voice mail. “Is everything all right?” I cringed as I realized how paranoid I must have sounded.
“Hello to you, too,” he said with a chuckle. “Everything’s fine. Are you okay? You sound out of breath.”
I cupped a hand over my forehead. A headache was blooming behind it. I reached into Vero’s cabinet and shook two ibuprofens out of a bottle. “I ran to catch my phone. I didn’t want to miss your call.”
Nick’s voice was tinged with concern. “Is that all?”
“Dinner was a little stressful. Ramón let it slip about the wedding.”
“Let me guess … Vero’s mom wasn’t thrilled.”
“That’s an understatement,” I said between sips from the tap.
“Are you settled at your hotel?”
“Not exactly.” I wiped my mouth and looked at myself in the mirror, wondering how much to share.
If I told him someone broke into Vero’s house, then hurled a rock through her living room window—that someone had been repeatedly threatening her—he’d call my sister to babysit, jump in his Impala, and break a speed record to get here.
I had everything under control. This was not something he needed to worry about.
I sat on the lip of the bathtub so I wouldn’t have to look at myself when I said, “Norma and Gloria invited me and Javi to spend the night at their house.”
I could practically hear the gears in Nick’s brain shift, the moment that inconsistent detail pinged the cop side of his brain. “Javi, too? How long did she invite you to stay?”
“I’m not exactly sure yet. We were all talking at dinner, and we might have found a lead in her case. There was a witness who can provide an alibi for Vero.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“It would be, if he would cooperate. She’s left a few messages, but he’s not returning her calls. So, I offered to find him and convince him to help.”
“Finn,” Nick said, the tinge of worry growing. “I don’t like the idea of you getting involved. If he’s a hostile witness—”
“I’ll be perfectly safe. Javi and Ramón are going with me.”
“Maybe I should—”
“Stop,” I said firmly. “I’m completely capable of handling this. There’s nothing you need to worry about.”
I wasn’t sure if his heavy sigh was from exhaustion or capitulation. I could picture him rubbing his eyes, his hands dragging down his cheeks and rasping over his thick dark stubble. “You’ll call me if you run into any problems?”
“I promise. How are the kids?” I asked before he could change his mind.
“Good.” His slight pause pinged the mom part of my brain.
“Georgia and Sam gave Delia and Zach the grand tour of the station. Then Roddy treated them to donuts and took them over to the fire department to see the engines while I managed to squeeze in some paperwork. We grabbed some takeout on the way home. They’re exhausted. I just got them to sleep.”
“You sound exhausted, too. Are you sure you don’t need me to call my sister for backup?”
“What I need,” Nick said, his voice falling to a low rumble that pinged an entirely different part of my body, “is for you to talk to your witness, enjoy your visit with Vero, and come home. There are plenty of things I can handle here without you, but there’s one in particular I prefer not to do alone. ”
I grinned. “Want to talk to me about it? Maybe I can walk you through it over the phone.”
“I’d rather show you in person.”
“I can’t wait. I’ll be home as soon as I can. Oh, and Nick? If a woman named Stacey comes by and offers you sex toys or brownies, just say no. And don’t show her your underwear.”
“My underwear?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said, sounding bemused. “Be safe tomorrow,” he added before hanging up.
I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and headed back to Vero’s room. She was in bed staring at the ceiling when I got there.
“I’m sorry I got you into this,” she said ruefully as I lay on the trundle.
“What kind of friend would I be if I let you go through it alone, especially after all you’ve been through for me? Besides, it’s not like you’re asking me to help you hide a body.”
That got a laugh out of her. “There were several bodies,” she corrected me.
“Well, there aren’t any now. We’ve made it through bigger messes before. We’ll get through this one, too.” I reached for the lamp and turned off the light.